Experts In Tehran Debate Impact Of Iran’s Funds Released By Iraq
Experts in Tehran are debating the potential impact of a recent US decision to allow Iraq to pay some of its debts to Iran on the country’s ongoing economic crisis.
Experts in Tehran are debating the potential impact of a recent US decision to allow Iraq to pay some of its debts to Iran on the country’s ongoing economic crisis.
Earlier this week, the Biden Administration announced that some of Iran’s frozen funds in Iraq will go to Oman, acting as a conduit to release the money for purchasing non-sanctionable goods under US supervision. Iraq owes Iran around $11 billion for imports of gas and electricity, but US banking sanctions prohibit dollar transactions with Iran. In June, the US agreed to make $2.7 billion available for Iran’s humanitarian needs.
Despite this development, the Iranian currency, the rial, has not shown improvement and continues to trade at around 500,000 rials per US dollar, as its value has drastically depreciated in the past year.
Businessman Masoud Daneshmand expressed doubts about the impact of the released funds, stating that the Iranian government would not receive any cash directly. Instead, after Iran purchases goods like wheat, it can present invoices, and Oman will release the money following US verification. Hence, the government will not have additional funds to impact the currency market.
Others, however, disagree with this perspective. Some argue that any released funds, even for food and medicine, could free up other foreign currencies for purposes such as supporting armed proxy groups in the region or producing military equipment such as drones that are supplied to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Amidst the ongoing economic crisis, Iran’s annual inflation is estimated to be somewhere between 50-70 percent, in the absence of reliable figures. However, what is certain is that food prices have risen much faster. Media and even regime politicians have been saying for months that food price inflation is around 100 percent.
Nevertheless, Ahmad Kimiyai, an economist, believes that the release of frozen funds, though not in cash dollars, is still beneficial. It allows some assets to enter the country despite sanctions and can be used for humanitarian imports, addressing shortages of food and medicine.
However, he said it is much better that the money can be used for humanitarian imports instead of cash transfers. “This is better than if the money reached the government, because it might be tempted to do populist acts,” referring to cash handout schemes to the population.
“Now we are certain that goods will be imported that can reach the people’s dinner tables,” and help with shortages of medicine, Kimiyai said.
On the other hand, businessman Kamran Soltanizadeh, who is the head of Iran’s currency exchangers indirectly criticized government propaganda highlighting that the US has released the frozen funds. He argued that there has been no official statement about exactly how much, when and how funds have been released.
He also stressed that the Iranian government is injecting dollars and other hard currencies into the forex market to support the rial, and if it were not for these interventions, the national currency would have fallen further.
The Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba group, a part of Iran-backed Shiite militia Hashd al-Shaabi – also known as Popular Mobilization Forces – warned of consequences to the US military presence and its dominance over Iraq's oil sector and its economy.
Akram al-Kaabi, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba's leader – a US-designated terrorist who is regarded as one of the main operatives of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force in Iraq – said, “this is the last warning” to Americans who have flooded the country with ongoing political and economic crises. “We have repeatedly warned about the US interference in the country’s internal affairs and provoking strife,” he said.
The leader of the group -- unofficially operated by the IRGC's Quds Force that provides funding, weapons, and training to its members – added that if the US forces do not leave Iraq and Washington does not stop “blatant interference and evil in our country, there will be broad and decisive measures by the heroes of Iraq who did not and will not accept humiliation and indignity.”
The remarks came in a statement on Wednesday after 14 Iraqi private banks sanctioned by Washington over helping to siphon US dollars to Iran said they were ready to challenge the measures and face audits and called on Iraqi authorities to provide assistance.
US financial authorities last week barred the Iraqi banks from conducting dollar transactions as part of a wider crackdown on dollar smuggling to Iran via the Iraqi banking system. The latest sanctions, along with earlier sanctions against eight banks, have left nearly a third of Iraq's 72 banks blacklisted, two Iraqi central bank officials said.
Haider al-Shamma, speaking on behalf of the 14 sanctioned banks, said on Wednesday the sanctions could further weaken Iraq's currency, which has fallen from under 1,500 dinars per US dollar last week to 1,580 as of Wednesday.
The dinar tailspin against the dollar has worsened since the New York Federal Reserve imposed tighter controls on international dollar transactions by commercial Iraqi banks in November to halt the illegal siphoning of dollars to Iran.
Iraq's central bank says the dinar's depreciation is also tied to merchants, including some undertaking illegitimate financial transactions, sourcing currency from the black market rather than the official platform. Under the curbs that took effect in January, Iraqi banks must use an online platform to reveal their transaction details. But most private banks have not registered on the platform and resorted to informal black markets in Baghdad to buy dollars.
Iran International revealed in May that Qassem Soleimani, an aide to former IRGC’s Quds force commander, is a key figure in money laundering for Tehran. Earlier in the year, Iran International also unraveled some details about the inner workings of a Quds force unit tasked with smuggling money from Iraq to Iran, proving that the Islamic Republic’s embassy in Iraq is also involved in money laundering operations aimed at funneling revenues from oil and gas exports back to Iran.
This financial network is bypassing the US sanctions at the cost of the Iraqi economy. An informed source in Baghdad told Iran International late in December that Washington has received reports that Iraq is still conducting trade with Iran using US dollars despite sanctions.
In one large gathering to mark the anniversary of the revered Shiite saint, Imam Hussein, son of the first Imam, Ali, mourners chanted:
“O Motherland, do you know why I’m devastated?
It’s because these people (the regime) only care about hijab.
They don’t see the poverty in our houses,
They have stolen so much from public coffers,
They don’t see the tears and laments of workers,
They don’t see that widows are destitute,
No bread on their tables,
That fathers are ashamed, and mothers distressed.
God be my witness that this is not the Justice of Ali!
All our problem is not a strand of hair!”
These verses were sung in the local dialect in Dezful in the oil-rich Khuzestan Province by the maddah whose role is reciting the praises of the prophet and his companions and mourning the slaying of his grandson, Imam Hussein in the battle of Karbala. While the maddah sings, his audience rhythmically beat their chests and move in tandem.
In recent years some maddahs have increasingly been using the story of the grandson of Prophet Mohammed, Imam Hussein, and his martyrdom to express their opposition to an interpretation of Islam that the regime has been promoting for four decades during the Ashura ceremonies.
The Day of Ashura, the anniversary of the slaying of Imam Hussein and his 72 companions on the 10th of the Islamic lunar month of Muharram, is the highlight of the month-long mourning ceremonies. The Imam and his companions were killed in 680 in a battle that took place in the plain of Karbala in present-day Iraq.
Every year during Muharram, the beginning of which fell on July 19 this year, thousands of local mourning groups known as hey'at organize large congregations and street processions with thousands of participants.
Thousands of others usually gather along the streets to watch the procession of men rhythmically beating their chests or using a bundle of chains to beat their backs to the beat of massive drums amplified by speakers. The self-beatings symbolize the pain and suffering of the Imam and his companions in Karabla.
Unlike the fearless maddah in Dezful who openly referred to present time issues of hijab and destitution of the people, others voice their criticism in veiled terms, often in the form of verses associated with certain historical and revolutionary eras that their audience easily understands.
“Stop oppression, God’s blood has come to boil,
heavens and earth are wailing,
because the earth has been clothed in poppies,” a maddah and his congregation sang in the very religiously conservative city of Yazd.
“Poppies have sprung from the blood of the youth of the motherland!
And cypress trees have bent under the grief of their lost lives,” the congregation continued singing. This verse was taken from the very famous poem of Mirzaadeh Eshghi, a 19th century poet who dedicated it to the martyrs of the Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911).
By creating a parallel between their own time and circumstances and the time and circumstances that led to Imam Hussein’s martyrdom, they identify the regime and it leaders with the Arab ruler, Yazid, whose troops killed the Imam. The verses and steps are often practiced for months before the actual ceremonies.
Muharram ceremonies have been held for centuries in Iran and among Shiites in other countries. However, since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the ceremonies and rituals have gained more prominence as the clerical government have made them a vehicle to show that the people are religious and loyal.
But increasingly mourning gatherings pop up around the country that include non-regime religious groups, who use the very Shiite ideology of seeking justice and condemning oppression to direct criticism at the clerical rulers.
Some people believe that the regime’s actions have resulted in the weakening of religion among Iranians while others argue that it is only the regime’s interpretation of Islam that has weakened and led to thousands of mosques being abandoned.
In a note published on Telegram Thursday entitled “Confiscation of History”, sociologist Ali Zamanian argued that using religious occasions such as Ashura to create an “ideological dichotomy” in which one side is all good and the other is all evil is unacceptable whether by regime-affiliated maddahs or those who sympathize with the opposition.
Zamanian, however, pointed out that critical maddahs’ expression of their frustration with the current economic crisis may show the government that it is not only those who believe in a secular state who oppose religious rule, but many religious people are “at the end of their ropes” too.
Even under the Shah, who was very proud of being the ruler of the only Shiite state in the world, the country was shut down for several days for the ceremonies and Ashura sermons were broadcast live on national radio.
